tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45101383050791993062015-07-30T23:05:23.385-04:00The Cranky LinguistObservations, thoughts, reminiscences, and occasional rants on
anthropology, linguistics, old-time banjo, and anything else that crosses my path...Ronald Kepharthttps://plus.google.com/108590561908135776436noreply@blogger.comBlogger323125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-91161086522460512372015-07-20T15:38:00.000-04:002015-07-20T15:38:39.694-04:00Catching up (again!)<div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 19.3199996948242px; margin-bottom: 6px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>I turned 70 on July 8</b>, a milestone I guess if you count using a base ten system. &nbsp;My sisters Susan and Mary came down from the wilds of Maryland to help me celebrate. &nbsp;That's Mary on the left, and Susan on the right. &nbsp;It had been quite a while since the three of us had been together, and it was an excellent and wonderful way to spend a birthday.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 19.3199996948242px; margin-bottom: 6px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-suRNsSfgNPA/Va1KvdzCq1I/AAAAAAAAAiQ/5PlY39si_v0/s1600/B-day%2B2015.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="170" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-suRNsSfgNPA/Va1KvdzCq1I/AAAAAAAAAiQ/5PlY39si_v0/s200/B-day%2B2015.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 19.3199996948242px; margin-bottom: 6px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 19.3199996948242px; margin-bottom: 6px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 19.3199996948242px; margin-bottom: 6px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>And in other news...</b></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 19.3199996948242px; margin-bottom: 6px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Is anyone else amused by the Trump/McCain thing, and especially at all the people in the media and elsewhere falling over each other to proclaim their belief that McCain is indeed a "war hero?"</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 19.3199996948242px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">For me McCain is not a genuine war hero. He would have been, if he had refused the order to drop bombs on people who had never done anything to us and whose chief crime was wanting to be free of French colonial rule.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 19.3199996948242px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>And...</b></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 19.3199996948242px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Bill Cosby is in the news all day, every day, for allegedly(?) giving multiple women drugs and then having sex with them. &nbsp;But he lost me way before this in the wake of the 1996 Oakland School Board's attempt to legitimize African American English when he referred to it as "that crap." &nbsp;This is a person with a doctorate in education. &nbsp;Of course, he was not alone: Maya Angelou and the Rev. Jesse Jackson also ridiculed the school board's perfectly reasonable (from a linguist's perspective) desire to use AAE as a positive part of children's language arts education.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 19.3199996948242px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Linguists get no respect, which is one of the things that make me cranky.</span></div>Ronald Kepharthttps://plus.google.com/108590561908135776436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-12025995289883482192015-05-04T14:51:00.001-04:002015-05-04T14:51:33.081-04:00Ebonics: Language or dialect?[I posted this to a linguistic anthropology listserve on January 16, 1997, in the wake of the Oakland brouhaha. &nbsp;Still relevant, I think.]<br /><br />A language is a dialect supported by armed forces.<br /><br />What does this mean? Everyone speaks a "dialect", i.e., a variety of human language. Those who happen to be in control get to call their variety a "language" , with all that implies, which is often negative for those who do not happen to speak that variety.<br /><br />There is no -linguistic- difference between a language and a dialect. Each has all the features necessary for human language; or, each is a full realization of universal grammar, or the language bioprogram, or whatever, if you believe in such things and wish to state it in those terms.<br /><br />Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian are all varieties of human language. They are labeled "languages" because in Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, respectively, the speakers of those varieties are in control. But, they are so mutually intelligible, they could easily be classified as "dialects" of "Scandinavian".. In fact, "Norwegian" did not become a "language" until "Norway" became a state separate from "Denmark" earlier in this century; prior to that, it was a "dialect" of "Danish".<br /><br />On the other hand, the many varieties of human language spoken within the state of "China" are not mutually intelligible. Nevertheless, they are called "dialects" of "Chinese". Do I have to spell out why?<br /><br />Another factor in language and dialect is speakers' attitudes towards each other. If people want to understand each other, they may think of their different language varieties as dialects of the same language. If, for some reason, they stop wanting to communicate with each other, they may begin thinking of them as separate languages. This may have nothing to do with the structure of the varieties of language under consideration.<br /><br />Which brings us back to Ebonics (let's call it BE to make typing easier, OK?). BE is a variety of human language. It never was, strictly speaking, a regional variety; it is and always has been a social variety, existing alongside other sorts of English. It is not monolithic by any means, so there is some variation within what might be covered loosely by the term "Ebonics". There is some disagreement about just how it originated, but it's absolutely not, and never has been, "slang', "argot", "degenerate English", "cognitively deficient English", or "lazy English". And, of course, it is not "genetically based" as the Oakland School Board so boneheadedly put it (unless of course you mean that it's just like all other languages. And, by the way, isn't THIS a great example of why we need anthropology and linguistics in the public schools??). And, BE can be described using the same toolbox linguists use for any of the world's varieties of language: it is systematic, patterned, rule-governed, etc. For a while, it seemed to be assimilating to standard English, but then in the 80s ("Reagan Revolution"; catsup = vegetable) it started moving away again, perhaps because many of its speakers realized that there simply was no point.<br /><br />Now, why might people want to label BE as a separate language? I think because for most of its history it has been labeled "bad English"; not even a "dialect". Recall that the educational psychologists of the 50s told us that its speakers were cognitively deficient because they produced sentences like 'The girl pretty' with no "linking verb". They had no real language. Apparently, these "doctors" had never studied Russian, which also allows predicates to consist of only an attributive, with no linking verb: 'Dyevushka krasivaya'. For the most part, even BE speakers themselves have been flamboozled into believing this (note that they are some of the most vocal critics of the Oakland proposal). What makes this situation so easy to maintain is that BE speakers (and others) so rarely have had the opportunity to look upon BE from a linguistic, i.e. scientific, perspective.<br /><br />Calling BE a "language", then, is a political statement. It says (to me, at least) "our speech must be recognized and respected as a manifestation of the human Language potential, universal in all humans, but denied us for centuries by an ideology which claimed that it was merely a deformation of the speech of those who enslaved us, caused by our own (a) laziness and/or (b) subhuman linguistic ability."<br /><br />Apparently, Oakland thinks it might be healthy to try breaking out of this pattern. Try something different, since the old racist notions about BE and the programs of action resulting from them don't seem to have worked. Let's give children (and others) explicit knowledge about both BE and standard English so that they know, consciously, what to do to move from one to the other. Note that this does NOT mean teaching the kids BE; they come to school already native speakers of it. Nor does it mean requiring teachers to speak BE. It does mean insuring that teachers have a scientific perspective on both BE and SE and the relationship between them. Perhaps most important, from my point of view, it means that teachers should know what a sentence like "The girl pretty" does NOT mean (linguistic deprivation, cognitive deficit, etc.).<br /><br />Speaking as a linguist, I think that Oakland is on the right track. I wish they could have stated their aims better and thus given the inevitable attackers a bit less of a target. Are all linguists going to agree? Certainly not. From the perspective of Greenberg, a historical/comparative linguist, calling BE a separate language is probably absurd. From the perspective of the children affected, however, I think Oakland is correct. It's correct because it formalizes a respect for the intelligence and knowledge that these children come to school with, a far cry from what has usually happened to African American children in this country.<br /><br />I should add that this is not "mere opinion". Studies from various parts of the world have shown that this is precisely what is needed to help people operate with a national language that is different from the home language. My own work in Grenada was along these lines, too.<br /><br />To make something like this work, a lot of people (teachers, parents, children, others) have to learn a lot. Learning involves change: change in neural circuitry, in behavior patterns, etc.). But wait! Conservatives, who largely rule our country, tend to be opposed to change (I checked in my American Heritage). Therefore, conservatives tend to oppose learning!! (I don't think I need to defend this point too strongly, given recent postings here and over on sci.anthropology newsgroup, not to mention Gingrich's "history course".) This means it will not be easy, and in fact we have seen how the buzzards start circling as soon as there's a slip-up ("genetically based"?!?- Yikes!).Ronald Kepharthttps://plus.google.com/108590561908135776436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-52800652978475805072015-04-07T15:38:00.002-04:002015-04-08T07:36:09.374-04:00The next time, there will be Hell to pay<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I haven't blogged much (or enough) lately, partly because so much crap has been going down and my ADHD makes it hard to focus: ISIS (or ISIL, or whatever; Al Shabaab; Boko Haram; the Republicans; and so on...</span></span><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Maybe I'll eventually get around to some of these, but for now I've been thinking about the "religious freedom restoration acts" or whatever they're called. Can't we agree that it's a tad nonsensical to imagine that stories told by Iron Age Middle Eastern goat-herders should be taken as a guide to living in the 21st century? The authors of the Bible, etc., simply did not have either the scope or depth of knowledge of human nature that we now possess. Give these poor, long-dead people a rest, for Vishnu's sake!</span></span><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And, perhaps, can we agree that the <i>raison d'etre</i>&nbsp;of these acts is bogus. &nbsp;Business people claim that that by providing goods and/or services to homosexuals, they are violating their religious principles. &nbsp;Say again? &nbsp;They act as though they are being coerced into homosexual acts or getting gay-married. &nbsp;No! &nbsp;They are business people being asked to not discriminate among the people who come to them for their goods and services. &nbsp;That's not making them gay, that's good business! &nbsp;What is the matter with these people?</span></span><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And while we're on the subject, we know that this is really about "Christian freedom," not any other religious freedom. &nbsp;The Christians, we hear (no need for citations) feel oppressed, bullied. &nbsp;There's a "war on Christianity." &nbsp;I don't see how how they come to that conclusion. &nbsp;If anything, the (some) Christians have been bullying everyone else ever since the nation was founded (and before that, too). &nbsp;I personally have spent a lifetime, now almost 70 years, being bullied by Christians. &nbsp;Bullied into reciting the Lord's Prayer, bullied into saying or pretending to say grace at the table, bullied into moments of silence while we thank the Christian god for something or other.</span></span><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I recall a visit to our house by a family a couple of years ago. &nbsp;The father considered himself to be a preacher. &nbsp;As they were getting ready to leave, he asked us to join hands while he thanked God for our opportunity to visit together. &nbsp;I felt bullied in my own home, but I let it go out of politeness, or at least that's what I told myself. &nbsp;But I was seething with anger inside, and I wanted to say something along the lines of "How dare you come into someone else's home and presume that they share your religious beliefs and behaviors?"</span></span><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I was as I say "polite" this time. &nbsp;No more. &nbsp;No more being bullied. &nbsp;The next time, there will be Hell to pay...</span></span>Ronald Kepharthttps://plus.google.com/108590561908135776436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-78049427265358392052015-02-28T17:06:00.003-05:002015-02-28T17:06:43.872-05:00Leonard Nimoy explains the Vulcan hand-sign<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DyiWkWcR86I" width="560"></iframe>Ronald Kepharthttps://plus.google.com/108590561908135776436noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-26523652992438717602015-02-27T12:48:00.000-05:002015-02-27T12:48:46.496-05:00Leonard Nimoy (1931-2015)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Mx-bd2GVpdM/VPCtpgOaGiI/AAAAAAAAAhc/48LGtQKNhbk/s1600/Prosper.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Mx-bd2GVpdM/VPCtpgOaGiI/AAAAAAAAAhc/48LGtQKNhbk/s1600/Prosper.jpg" height="290" width="400" /></a></div><br />Ronald Kepharthttps://plus.google.com/108590561908135776436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-5370776607840731892015-02-22T21:16:00.001-05:002015-02-22T21:16:46.067-05:00New rule*<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Am I the only one who gets a twinge of cognitive dissonance when I hear the name of the terrorist group Al- Shabaab? Shouldn't they be required to pick a more evil-sounding name, rather than one that makes me think of a 50s doo wop song?</span></span><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">*Apologies to Bill Maher.</span></span>Ronald Kepharthttps://plus.google.com/108590561908135776436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-13825971710183496392015-02-13T13:38:00.000-05:002015-02-13T13:38:08.618-05:00Darwin Day!Charles Darwin was born on February 12, 1809. &nbsp;Here's a little tribute to him by a banjo-playing friend up in North Carolina, Donald Zepp.<br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/22DqDhaHPnY" width="420"></iframe>Ronald Kepharthttps://plus.google.com/108590561908135776436noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-77966603055099388182015-01-30T20:46:00.000-05:002015-01-30T20:46:03.569-05:00Anti-vaxers are making me cranky!A handful of semi-random and in some cases minimally supportable thoughts on the anti-vaccination crowd, spurred by our recent <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/measles/cases-outbreaks.html">measles "outbreak."</a><br /><br /><ul><li>I suppose there are some folks who haven't heard about measles in so long, they just assume there's no longer such a thing in the world to worry about. &nbsp;And so they don't.<br /></li><li>Some people are against vaccinating their children because numbnuts like <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/michele-bachmann-continues-perry-attack-claims-hpv-vaccine-might-cause-mental-retardation/2011/09/13/gIQAbJBcPK_blog.html">Michelle Bachmann</a> have convinced them that vaccines cause mental retardation, autism, or whatever. &nbsp;Unfortunately, too many Americans are simply not scientifically literate enough to evaluate these kinds of statements, and so they simply take whatever the numbnuts say as truth. &nbsp;This is a failure of our educational system.<br /></li><li>And then, there's the cultural thing: The US's extreme independence training and accompanying lack of social responsibility. &nbsp;It is out of this cultural tradition that we get what I call the right-libertarianism of people like Rand Paul, etc. &nbsp;This folk model tells us that it's not only OK, but "American," to be what any objective observer would call selfish to the point of dysfunction. &nbsp;Whatever we do–smoke, drive drunk, walk around carrying a gun, not vaccinate our kids, etc–is ok, because how these behaviors affect other people just does not matter.<br /></li><li>And of course, there's the religion thing. &nbsp;For some, vaccination is in &nbsp;defiance of God's Will: if God didn't want children to die from the diseases we vaccinate them against, He wouldn't have created those diseases in the first place. &nbsp;Who are we to challenge Him?</li></ul><br />These are all bad reasons for not vaccinating your children against what are essentially easily preventable diseases. &nbsp;In a less independence-trained, and more dependence-trained society, people would care more about how what they do affects others. &nbsp;Unfortunately, we do not live in that kind of society.Ronald Kepharthttps://plus.google.com/108590561908135776436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-29243704757198524722014-12-17T20:45:00.000-05:002014-12-17T20:45:49.089-05:00Big news!Today President Obama announced the start of more normal relations with Cuba. This, after over 50 years of treating Cuba and its people really badly. &nbsp;There's been the embargo, immoral and condemned by pretty much the entire civilized world. &nbsp;Perhaps more egregious has been the US's support for terrorist activities against Cuba originating in Miami, and in some cases perpetrated by people who actually brag about what they do.<br /><br />There's a lot to say, but for now I'll point to <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ronald.kephart.9/media_set?set=a.244039927892.139076.642862892&amp;type=3">some photos</a> I took during a visit to Cuba in 2002. I was attending a conference on education and language at the Universidad de Pinar del Río, which is out at the western end of the island. &nbsp;They're on Facebook, but they're set to "public" so if you have an FB account you should be able to view them. &nbsp;Here's a teaser:<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-50FvIzE4en4/VJIxQXBp2wI/AAAAAAAAAhM/4nGMPryRJpQ/s1600/Kids_Cuba.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-50FvIzE4en4/VJIxQXBp2wI/AAAAAAAAAhM/4nGMPryRJpQ/s1600/Kids_Cuba.jpg" height="320" width="246" /></a></div><br />Ronald Kepharthttps://plus.google.com/108590561908135776436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-78181067313818043222014-12-16T12:31:00.001-05:002014-12-16T12:31:33.150-05:00Time to lose that imaginary friend!<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">OK, here's the thing. I'm pretty sure that religion is not the root of *all* evil. But I am sure that if your imaginary friend is telling you to kill schoolchildren, you need to lose that imaginary friend. &nbsp;She/he/it is not doing you or the planet any good. &nbsp;Just lose them.</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">While we're on the subject, I might give the same advice if your imaginary friend(s) are telling you to hate homosexuals, Blacks, poor people, foreigners, or almost anybody. &nbsp;Except those whose imaginary friend tells them to kill schoolchildren. &nbsp;With them, you're on your own.</span>Ronald Kepharthttps://plus.google.com/108590561908135776436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-41856940019500649582014-11-26T10:28:00.000-05:002014-11-26T10:37:15.927-05:00What do "White" people know?In my linguistic anthropology class we are doing semantics, the study of meaning. &nbsp;Yesterday, the class was presented with pairs of sentences, and asked to decide whether their meanings were the same or different. &nbsp;For the purpose of this exercise, three kinds of "meaning" were considered: referential, social, and affective meaning. &nbsp;Referential meaning has to do with what the sentence (or word or phrase) refers to externally: 'the dog' refers to a definite member of the genus <i>Canis</i>.&nbsp; Social meaning is what the sentence implies about the speakers' membership in some social group or the context (e.g. formal, informal) surrounding the speech event. &nbsp;Affective meaning is what the sentence implies about the internal state of speakers with regard to what they are saying.<br /><br />An example might help. &nbsp;Here are two sentences:<br /><ul><li>I don't see anything.</li><li>I don't see nothing.</li></ul>These sentences are the same referentially; they both refer to my not having anything in my field of vision. (Yes, I know, some grammar nazi will try to chime in and claim that the second means that I <i>do</i>&nbsp;see something, but that's just nonsense.) &nbsp;They are also the same affectively, in that we can't infer anything about the speaker's inner state. &nbsp;However, they are different <i>socially</i>: we might infer that the speakers are different, with the second belonging to a group that uses non-standard English; or, we might infer that the same person said both but in different social contexts.<br /><br />Now, in the class yesterday one of the pairs of sentences was this:<br /><br /><ul><li>Is there a Miss Smith in this office?</li><li>Is it a Miss Smith in this office?</li></ul><br />The students presented all sorts of contorted calculations attempting to construct different <i>referential</i>&nbsp;meanings for these two sentences. For example, the 'it' in the second dehumanizes Miss Smith; and so on. &nbsp;Not one of these students recognized that the second sentence is from African American English, and that it's referential meaning is the same as the first one. &nbsp;<i>Not one</i>. &nbsp;I should add that the students in this class were all "White," or rather, none of them belonged to the US hypodescent group labeled "Black."<br /><br />This led me to wander a little off topic in the class, by questioning whether the lack of knowledge that White people typically have <i>about</i>&nbsp;Black people contributes to situations like what we see happening in Ferguson, etc. &nbsp;Of course, this little bit of AAE grammar is a little thing, almost inconsequential in itself, but not knowing lots of little things adds up to not knowing a lot.<br /><br />And, why don't White people have this knowledge? &nbsp;Why is it that at no time in their "language arts" classes have these students been presented with facts about the linguistic variation that exists all around them? &nbsp;They've had to wait until they got to university, and then happened to take linguistics for one reason or another. &nbsp;And some of them are English Education majors, destined to themselves be language arts teachers.<br /><br />The answer, it seems to me, is that we don't value what Black people know. &nbsp;To the extent that it differs from more mainstream English, their speech is just a broken, deficient form of that wider English. &nbsp;Nothing to see here; move along...Ronald Kepharthttps://plus.google.com/108590561908135776436noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-81497167443033941672014-11-22T10:17:00.001-05:002014-11-22T10:17:34.010-05:00November 22, 1963Today is the day in 1963 that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.<br /><br />I was in my first year at St. Johns College, Annapolis, Maryland. &nbsp;I was about to go for a run before my Dad picked me up to drive home for Thanksgiving. &nbsp;As I was leaving the dorm someone yelled out that the President had been shot, and we spent some time listening to a radio. &nbsp;The run was scuttled.<br /><br />On the drive home Dad and I listened to the radio in the car. &nbsp;As I recall (it's been a while) he didn't say anything. &nbsp;He had always been a Republican, and later became a fan of Rush Limbaugh etc. &nbsp;I am not sure how he felt about what happened to Kennedy.Ronald Kepharthttps://plus.google.com/108590561908135776436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-31823369922389101242014-10-25T14:28:00.000-04:002014-10-28T14:25:41.659-04:00How's your "grammar?"I took <a href="http://www.quizfreak.com/can-you-answer-these-12-common-grammar-mistake-questions/index1.html">this "grammar quiz"</a> yesterday, more curious about what sorts of questions they would ask than whatever my "score" might be. As it turned out, I got them all "right."<br /><br />(1) Of the 12, only 3 were really about "grammar." And one of those asked for a form (whom) that is essentially obsolete, what one writer calls "nostalgia as repression." Another asked for the past tense of "lie" (as in "lie down"); which is "lay" but that's also somewhat archaic at this point. The one legitimate grammar question had to do with subject/verb agreement (is v. are).<br /><br />(2) Perhaps one (lose v. loose) was about lexicon, although this spills over into...<br /><br />(3) ... spelling, which is what the rest were about, and which is not "grammar." &nbsp;One of the more egregious examples of this is the distinction in spelling between the two forms pronounced [ɪts], written <i>its and it's.</i>&nbsp; The first is possessive, 'belonging to it'; the second is the contraction of <i>it and is</i>. &nbsp;This is not a confusion that anyone would or could make in speaking, because they're homophones! &nbsp;It's only in spelling that they get separate treatment, and this is not where the grammar is. &nbsp;Another frequently cited "confusion" is that of <i>there - they're - their</i>. &nbsp;No English speaker would actually "confuse" these while using English, because they're different things: an adverb, a subject-verb contraction, and a possessive determiner. &nbsp;They might confuse the spellings, but not the grammatical functions.<br /><br />It would be nice if the people who make up these things would actually learn what "grammar" is. &nbsp;A linguistics course might help...Ronald Kepharthttps://plus.google.com/108590561908135776436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-89768337555661898642014-09-26T08:23:00.000-04:002014-09-26T08:23:55.317-04:00I never expected this...This happened yesterday: &nbsp;I had finished the lecture part of my large intro class and was starting to tell them about their Test, which would be online through the weekend. Things like what topics to expect, the window the test would be available, how much time they have once they launch the test, and so on... &nbsp;And as I was doing so, about a third of the class got up, gathered their stuff, and headed for the door. &nbsp;While I was talking. This is the first I recall something like this happening, believe it or not, in about 30 years of teaching. &nbsp;I have until next Tuesday to prepare a way to shame them into never doing this again, although I suspect, given that this is the United States of America, it would be pointless.Ronald Kepharthttps://plus.google.com/108590561908135776436noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-2968669693338403042014-09-11T12:01:00.004-04:002014-09-11T12:01:54.829-04:00Remembering 9/11?<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 17.5636348724365px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In my opinion, the best way to remember 9/11 would be to issue arrest warrants for George W Bush and all the members of his admin who either failed to protect us from what happened, even though they had intel that it might, and/or who lied the country into the ongoing wars that followed and in the process killed more Americans than the actual 9/11 terrorists did. That is all.</span></span>Ronald Kepharthttps://plus.google.com/108590561908135776436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-29123093572620059482014-08-27T12:37:00.000-04:002014-08-27T12:37:52.444-04:00Tim White on "theory" versus "fact"This is epic:<br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/srC1au8ZiU4" width="560"></iframe>Ronald Kepharthttps://plus.google.com/108590561908135776436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-90332813878128090522014-08-06T10:21:00.000-04:002014-08-06T10:21:21.708-04:00It's August 6th, again<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I have some pressing things to attend to today and I'll have to forego my usual rant about Hiroshima and Nagasaki. &nbsp;However, you can read my previous posts on this:</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">2009: <a href="http://crankylinguist.blogspot.com/2009/08/almost-unmentioned-anniversary.html">An almost unmentioned anniversary</a><br />2010: <a href="http://crankylinguist.blogspot.com/2010/08/most-destructive-use-ever-of-weapons-of.html">The most destructive use ever of weapons of mass destruction</a><br />2011: <a href="http://crankylinguist.blogspot.com/2011/08/another-august-6th.html">Another August 6th</a><br />2012: <a href="http://crankylinguist.blogspot.com/2012/08/yet-another-august-6th.html">Yet another August 6th</a><br />2013: <a href="http://crankylinguist.blogspot.com/2013/08/august-6-1945.html">August 6, 1945</a></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This year I'll let <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/06/hiroshima-day-nuclear-weapons-cold-war-usa-bomb">Noam Chomsky guide us through the Nuclear Weapons Era</a>.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Spoiler alert: It's not pretty.</span>Ronald Kepharthttps://plus.google.com/108590561908135776436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-43122990283848838032014-07-24T14:39:00.001-04:002014-07-24T14:39:56.320-04:00George Takei on The Daily ShowLast night on The Daily Show, George Takei talked very movingly with Jon Stewart about his childhood experience as a detainee in a US <strike>concentration camp</strike> detention facility.<br /><br /><div style="background-color: black; width: 520px;"><div style="padding: 4px;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="288" src="http://media.mtvnservices.com/embed/mgid:arc:video:thedailyshow.com:e7b9937e-4cd8-43c9-a3af-f6c47c726a69" width="512"></iframe><br /><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-top: 4px; padding: 4px;"><b><a href="http://thedailyshow.cc.com/">The Daily Show</a></b><br />Get More: <a href="http://thedailyshow.cc.com/full-episodes/">Daily Show Full Episodes</a>,<a href="http://www.comedycentral.com/indecision">Indecision Political Humor</a>,<a href="http://www.facebook.com/thedailyshow">The Daily Show on Facebook</a></div></div></div>Ronald Kepharthttps://plus.google.com/108590561908135776436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-76019475669125978542014-07-22T11:21:00.000-04:002014-07-22T11:21:00.467-04:00The word is: "Jeopardy"<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Last night (Monday July 21) on "Jeopardy" there was a clue that went something like "a single unit of language." &nbsp;The response they wanted was "what is a word." That may be the most problematic answer they could have thought of, given that besides words all the following can be considered "single units of language":</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><ul><li>Distinctive features (units of articulation, e.g. Labial, Voiced, etc.)</li><li>Segments (consonants &amp; vowels, each of which is a unit composed of distinctive features: [b])</li><li>Phonemes (psychologically salient units that signal contrast: /b/)</li><li>Syllables (units of pronunciation, most commonly a consonant + a vowel but there are shapes, depending on the language: [ba], [bo], [bla], blab], and so on)</li><li>Morphemes (units that refer in some way: {kæt})</li></ul></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When we get to morphemes we can begin to slide into "words," but it's tricky. The "word" <cat> (we use the <_> to enclose an orthographic representation) is composed of one morpheme, but what about <cats>? &nbsp;It's composed of two morphemes. Still, it's a "single unit" when considered within a larger structure, say a Noun Phrase (NP). &nbsp;In <the cats=""> the word <cats> is a single unit under what we call an N' ("N-bar"), a constituent paired with <the>, which is a Determiner (Det). &nbsp;If we expand to <the cats="" nervous=""> we get <nervous cats=""> also living under a single N', still paired with that Det and still a "single unit" of language.</nervous></the></the></cats></the></cats></_></cat></span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In other words, it's more complicated than most people realize. And, I humbly submit, *this* is what "language arts" teachers should be showing our children!</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Aruskipasipxañanakasakipunirakispäwa!</b> &nbsp;A "single word" in Aymara meaning 'I know from personal knowledge that it's good if we all make the effort to communicate with one another.'</span>Ronald Kepharthttps://plus.google.com/108590561908135776436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-1825349615029697982014-07-19T13:43:00.001-04:002014-07-19T16:14:47.268-04:00"Nostalgia as repression"<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Weird Al Yankovic has a new song out called "Word Crimes." &nbsp;It's quite catchy and fun to listen to. It includes many complaints and grievances regarding the use of language similar to those that pop up with depressing frequency on Facebook, compiled by self-styled "grammar" experts and forwarded by people whose knowledge of the science of language is limited to what they may have learned over the years from so-called "language arts" teachers. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/8Gv0H-vPoDc" width="560"></iframe><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As with the typical Facebook "grammar" post, these complaints constitute a very mixed bag. &nbsp;Many, if not most, are not really (from a linguist's perspective) about "grammar" at all, but rather about ancillary issues: spelling, punctuation, and so on. &nbsp;For example, the difference between <i>it's</i> (the contraction of <i>it is</i>) and <i>its</i> (the possessive determiner) is strictly a spelling issue. &nbsp;There is no doubt that English speakers know the difference, that is they have separate lexical entries for these homophones in their mental dictionaries. And there's no doubt that when English speakers say <i>it's a shame</i> they know they are producing a contraction of <i>it is a shame</i>; when they say <i>its handle broke</i>&nbsp;they are referring to something's handle, maybe a cup: <i>the cup's handle broke</i>.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Other sets of homophones can be dealt with similarly: <i>there their they're</i>; <i>too two</i>; <i>four for fore</i>; and so on.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">One of the "crimes" Weird Al mentions: the confusion of, <i>who</i> and <i>whom</i>. &nbsp;This is a bit different. The distinction here reflects a time when English was a more highly inflected language, with word endings signaling the <i>case</i> of a noun or pronoun. &nbsp;The English noun <i>boat</i> had forms that included <i>bāt</i> for singular subject and object; <i>bātas</i> for plural subject and object; <i>bātes</i> and <i>bāta</i> for singular and plural possessives respectively; and <i>bāte</i> and <i>bātum</i> for singular and plural use with prepositions.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Like 'boat,' once upon a time the English interrogative/relative pronoun <i>who</i> (earlier <i>hwā</i>) had different forms for different cases. &nbsp;Three of these have survived: <i>who</i> (the subject form);&nbsp;<i>whom </i>(the object form), and <i>whose</i>&nbsp;(the possessive form).</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And, as with the forms of <i>boat</i>, a leveling process has been going on over the centuries. We now have only three forms for boat: <i>boat</i>, <i>boats</i>, and <i>boat's</i>. &nbsp;The last two are now homophones, so phonologically there's just /bot/ and /bots/. &nbsp;Somehow, though, English speakers know when they mean 'more than one boat' versus 'belonging to a boat'.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As for the forms of <i>who</i>, there's been a leveling process going on here as well. <i>Who saw you?</i> still works, of course, but <i>Whom did you see?</i> is now almost always <i>Who did you see?</i>&nbsp; This is one of those things that makes the grammar nazis cry, but it's perfectly normal. Languages change. And English has changed quite a bit, as anyone who tries to read this sentence will realize:</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Fæder ure ϸu ϸe ært on heofonum, si ϸin nama gehalgod.</span></i></blockquote><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Insisting that people keep using <i>whom</i> even though, in normal English, it has nearly disappeared, is not unlike trying to make people go back to using <i>f</i><i>æder</i>&nbsp;for <i>father</i>. &nbsp;Kind of silly.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />In a book titled <i>On Literacy</i>, Pattison (page 162)* noted that trying to force people to use forms of language that have fallen or are falling out of usage constitutes "nostalgia as repression." &nbsp;This is an apt term for this form of what amounts to abuse on the part of people who profess to be language experts, but who in fact are sadly undereducated in that area.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />-------------------</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">*Pattison, Robert. 1984. <i>On Literacy:&nbsp;</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 1.3;"><i>The Politics of the Word from Homer to the Age of Rock</i>. Oxford University Press.</span></span><br /><br />Ronald Kepharthttps://plus.google.com/108590561908135776436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-42405554725729591012014-07-16T11:04:00.001-04:002014-07-16T11:05:17.774-04:00Jon Stewart on the child "border crisis"Jon Stewart on the child "border crisis":<br /><br /><div style="background-color: black; width: 520px;"><div style="padding: 4px;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="288" src="http://media.mtvnservices.com/embed/mgid:arc:video:thedailyshow.com:a6e18b24-4be4-4c29-9061-01ceafb7f26a" width="512"></iframe><br /><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-top: 4px; padding: 4px;"><b><a href="http://thedailyshow.cc.com/">The Daily Show</a></b><br />Get More: <a href="http://thedailyshow.cc.com/full-episodes/">Daily Show Full Episodes</a>,<a href="http://www.comedycentral.com/indecision">Indecision Political Humor</a>,<a href="http://www.facebook.com/thedailyshow">The Daily Show on Facebook</a></div></div></div>Ronald Kepharthttps://plus.google.com/108590561908135776436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-59400247231166398962014-07-12T17:02:00.000-04:002014-07-13T17:13:53.095-04:00Those ivory tower perfessers<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In the midst of a discussion over on Facebook, regarding the value and purpose of education, some commenters expressed views suggesting that they believe that the purpose of education is preparation for a job or jobs. There was also, the usual American folk notion of higher education being dominated by "liberals" who spend their class time "indoctrinating" students into particular "ideologies," mostly of course leftist (rightwing or conservative views are not, of course, "ideologies"). &nbsp;A&nbsp;number of misconceptions about the nature, purpose, and content of higher education emerged, and I promised to take it seriously and attempt to address some of the issues raised. &nbsp;Only the gods know why...</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br /><a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />So to begin with, here are a couple of his statements, for context (my emphasis; original spelling retained):</span><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There are way to many kids that are <b>wasting their time</b> and money on college courses that will never provide them a living but rather only serve to anchor them with debt and <b>destructive ideologies</b>.&nbsp;</span></i></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The <b>skilled trades</b> offer a good living to people. For the most part a young person can earn money while learning useful skills in the trades and they don't have to spend the rest of their lives paying interest on tuition.&nbsp;</span></i></blockquote><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There's obviously a confusion here of <i>education</i> and <i>training</i>. &nbsp;This is not surprising. In fact, it's being encouraged all over the country (perhaps the world), in that universities, which are supposed to be about education, feel more and more pressure under a business-model regime of evaluation that emphasizes preparation for jobs at the expense of education for life as a citizen, something that should properly be the realm of training colleges and other such programs.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We see it also in the false dichotomy of "humanities" versus the so-called "STEM" disciplines: science, technology, engineering, mathematics. &nbsp;These latter, supposedly, prepare people for actual work, but what can an English or Philosophy major do? &nbsp;"Jobs" are what it's all about in a world increasingly subjugated to the ruthless regime of predatory capitalism. &nbsp;But I digress...</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There was also plenty of name-calling intended to put me down: "ivory tower perfesser," "liberal," "socialist," even "douchebag." Setting aside the last, it became clear that these folks were expressing a pretty wide-ranging suspicion of, and disdain for (one might say hatred of) higher education in the US. &nbsp;They seemed to think that calling someone out as a "professor" or "liberal" was shaming, and I suppose given the nature of US culture I can't blame them for thinking that. We've long been a sort of "know-nothing" society. &nbsp;If ignorance is bliss, America must be in a near-permanent state of ecstasy.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Anyway, there was one question that I thought I might take seriously and try to respond to (again, my emphasis):</span><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Being educated is an excellent choice for many people but it shouldn't have to come with their professor's favorite ideology, right or left. <b>Unless it's a political science class, philosophy or something similar what is the purpose of mixing political doctrine with pertinent course work?</b></span></i></blockquote><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">One issue here has to do with the "pertinence" of knowledge about human political behavior. As an anthropologist, when I teach a course that covers human culture, I am compelled to teach about as many aspects of culture as I can fit into a semester: subsistence patterns, kinship and descent, marriage and family, economics, religion; the usual list of things we do in any introductory course. And of course, politics. &nbsp;For anthropologists, this is the part of our culture that encompasses the production, distribution, and consumption of power, both within and between social groups. &nbsp;When I teach, I explore some of the cultural adaptations that humans have made to these ends: how we have organized ourselves into various kinds of groups; the degree to which power is spread among the members of these groups, from being relatively egalitarian to highly stratified; how we invest power in leaders within these groups; how power is exercised between groups (war, etc.); and so on.&nbsp;</span><br /><div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In addition, politics is really not separable from other aspects of culture. We know that there are patterns that emerge between politically small-scale societies and the ways they produce their food, the kinds of leaders they have, the kinds of economic behaviors they exhibit, even the forms of religion they tend to practice. &nbsp;Anthropologists see all this holistically, as an integrated web created by humans to help us survive. &nbsp;So, b</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">ecause politics is so important to our ways of being, it is highly "pertinent" to our understanding of overall human culture.</span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />But here's the rub. In our culture (as in some others, I believe) many people see teaching about something as equivalent to "indoctrination" in that something. I'll give two examples from my own teaching.</span><br /><div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">First example: I teach about human evolution. I make it very clear that in my biological anthropology course, I do not take seriously "creationism" or "intelligent design" or any other religion based explanations for humanity. I try to make it clear, also, that if there are any students in the class who think God created the World in 4004 BC, they are free to do so. &nbsp;However, and this is the point: they are not free to expect that I will count their answer correct on a test asking for the age of the Earth. &nbsp;They have to learn the material to pass the course. &nbsp;After that, they can keep believing whatever they want. &nbsp;Obviously, I'd prefer to discover that I had influenced their thinking, but that can't always happen, nor perhaps should it.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Second example: I teach about religion. I am, personally, an atheist, and I don't mind them knowing that. I also - and I do everything I can to let them know this - believe that religion can be a marvelous, sometimes even awe-inspiring and beautiful, manifestation of human creativity. I talk about the various forms of religions humans have created. &nbsp;I use the term <i>cult</i> for all religious systems (individualistic, shamanistic, communal, ecclesiastic- as one way of thinking about them) in an effort to minimize their ethnocentrism, the idea that one religion or another might be the "real" or "right" one. &nbsp;Frequently I give them a case study lecture on Haitian <i>Vodoun</i>, a great example of a syncretic religion that ties together West African and European religious ideas as well as bringing together other issues such as imperialism, slavery, and so on. As with evolution, I might ask them to know a few things about <i>Vodoun</i>, such as which spirit&nbsp;is associated with the Catholic Virgin Mary (<i>Ezili</i>) or who is the Guardian of the Crossroads (<i>Baron Samdi</i>).&nbsp;</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And here's what happens sometimes: students confuse <i>learning about</i> something with being forced to <i>believe</i> something. &nbsp;I actually once had a student complain on their evaluation of me that I was trying to "convert them to Voodoo." &nbsp;Similar things have happened in reaction to my lectures on politics. I show them other political systems, and I try to give them the all-too-rare objective understanding of our system here at home. I try to debunk the pervasive mythologies that surround terms like "capitalism" and "socialism" and "communism," and I try to talk honestly about these things. &nbsp;As with evolution and religion, I make it clear that I am not trying to "convert" them to anything except critical thinking and understanding.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Which, I fervently hope, might make them better citizens, whatever "jobs" they end up doing.</span></div>Ronald Kepharthttps://plus.google.com/108590561908135776436noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-22023385507633485882014-07-04T13:59:00.002-04:002014-07-04T14:00:46.244-04:00Yet another 4th of July...<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Last year, on July 4, <a href="http://crankylinguist.blogspot.com/2013/07/another-july-4th.html">I wrote</a>:</span><br /><i></i><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>I've said it before and I'll repeat it here: The "American Revolution" was not a revolution. In a revolution, the people on the bottom end up on top. What happened in the British colonies that eventually became the United States was a beheading. The level of rulers at the very top, the British Crown, was lopped off. The people at the top in the colonies remained on top, while slaves remained slaves, women remained women, Native Americans remained pretty much nobody.</i></span></span></blockquote><br /> <span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This came at the end of my tally of mostly complaints and grievances regarding the state current state of the US, some of which is still relevant: use of killer drones overseas; Guantanamo; ongoing Rethuglican obstruction of any and every thing the President tries to accomplish; and so on. One of the things that stood out last year was the Supreme Court's disemboweling of the Voting Rights Act.</span></span><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And now, a year later, the Supremes have been at it again. They have decided that a corporation like Hobby Lobby can decide which health care benefits to give their female employees under the Affordable Care Act, based on their "sincerely held religious beliefs."</span></span><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I'm not buying it (I'm also never going into Hobby Lobby). &nbsp;Religious beliefs, no matter how "sincerely" held, should not in my opinion exempt anyone from the laws and regulations of the land. You should not be allowed to bring your imaginary friends into court.</span></span><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Happy Fourth!</span></span>Ronald Kepharthttps://plus.google.com/108590561908135776436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-756333322392884052014-06-30T17:18:00.000-04:002014-06-30T17:18:15.440-04:00The Hobby Lobby malfunctionHere's the thing: No matter how "sincerely" you believe in them, your imaginary friends should have absolutely no say in how you treat your employees. Period.Ronald Kepharthttps://plus.google.com/108590561908135776436noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-64096720512253823792014-06-28T14:45:00.002-04:002014-06-28T14:45:43.124-04:00Consequences of dysfunctional enculturation<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://6abc.com/142607/">This happened</a> a day or so ago, in New Jersey. &nbsp;A woman was brutally beaten in public by a MacDonald's coworker, her 2-year old son tries to stop it, and the adults stand around taking video. &nbsp;Welcome to America.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And then, on CNN's New Day (Saturday) the hosts interviewed a "licensed psychologist" about this, and he actually came scarily close to explaining it, but without the anthropological insight (shouldn't psychologists, almost by definition, have to know <i>some</i> anthropology?). &nbsp;Anyway, the CNN guys asked how this could happen, and the psychologist pointed out that the adults had been socialized (we would say enculturated) into being witnesses, bystanders, not participants; the 2-year old, on the other hand, was not "socialized" and thus didn't know he was supposed to just watch or try to film it.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If only this psychologist had known about psychological anthropologist Francis Hsu, who wrote about a thing called Independence Training way back in the 50s. &nbsp;Independence Training, in the extreme form we see in America, turns us into unempathetic, socially irresponsible psychopaths: she's not beating me, what's the problem? &nbsp;I'll be writing an email as soon as I get his name...</span>Ronald Kepharthttps://plus.google.com/108590561908135776436noreply@blogger.com4